Basketball has become an increasing popular sport with backyard and neighborhood basketball goals increasing in popularity. These backyard basketball goals often function well for families and communities with a wide variety of playing, including grown adults and small children. Consequently, adjustable height basketball goals have become a favorite product of the backyard or personal basketball courts where individuals over various heights and skills desire to play on the same basketball goal.
Many such adjustable height basketball goals include movable support arms that may be locked in place to support the basketball goal at a given height above a playing surface. To lock the support arms in place, clamps, locking pins, and other mechanisms known in the art are often incorporated into an adjustment handle or mechanism which may be manipulated to unlock, adjust the height of the basketball goal, and finally relock the basketball goal at the desired height. Unfortunately, upon release of the locking mechanism, the weight of the basketball backboard and goal may be suddenly released, causing the adjustment handle to “jump” and surprise the user or consumer.
One attempt to counter act the sudden release of the weight of the basketball backboard and goal, is to incorporate an air spring or other type of spring mechanism, which may be configured and positioned to act on the supports arms in the opposite direction of the weight of the basketball backboard and goal. Unfortunately, the springs force varies the height of the basketball goal and the spring mechanisms degrade overtime. As such, the adjustment handle may still jump or suddenly release the weight of the backboard and goal upon unlocking the adjustment mechanism.
Another disadvantage of traditional adjustable height systems is that a precise, smooth height adjustment is very difficult. During adjustment, a user must support the weight of the basketball goal while making height adjustments, finally positioning the backboard precisely before locking the goal in place. Even if an air spring is used, the weight of the backboard and the goal may make controlling the weight and positioning the basketball goal precisely very difficult for smaller individuals, such as children.
Additionally, traditional locking mechanisms often failed to provide sufficiently small adjustment increments and to reliably secure the height of the basketball goal. For example, a clamp has been used to secure the adjustment handle to an adjustment pole at various locations in order to position the height of the basketball goal. While the clamp does provide continuous adjustment at any height, the clamp suffers from degradation and slippage on the adjustment pole, especially when the clamp experiences heavy load, such as a player dunking a basketball.
Therefore, there is a need for an adjustable basketball goal system that can be smoothly and easily adjusted.